Russell Crowe: Why I turned down £56 million role in The Lord of the Rings

Russell Crowe, the star of Gladiator, turned down a role in The Lord of the
Rings that would have seen him take 10 per cent of the the film's profits.

Russell Crowe was offered the role of AragornPhoto: AP

Tim Walker. Edited by Richard Eden

6:28AM BST 22 Jun 2011

Giving a talk at Durham University about his career, Russell Crowe admitted that he still had lots to learn.

The star of Gladiator told the students that he had turned down the role of Aragorn in The Lord of Rings because the film’s budget was under pressure and the producers wanted to pay him 10 per cent of the profits instead of an upfront fee.

So far, the film has made £565 million. “If I had taken that film, I wouldn’t be here,” he confessed.

Fay Ripley: Working-class TV just a fad

The BBC’s drive for more working-class shows is just a flash in the pan, claims Fay Ripley.

“It will all change again in a year,” she says of the plan by Danny Cohen, the new BBC One boss, which is thought to have been why The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, the white-collar series in which she starred, was axed.

The 45-year-old actress, who has signed a pledge to support Small Charity Week, adds: “There will be a glut of working-class comedies. Then, they will say it is too much.”

Ripley has just completed a second cookery book. “I am definitely most proud of my two children and my first cookbook - and I don’t know which comes first,” she laughs.

Tony and Cherie Blair: Back to school

Tony and Cherie Blair have always come down like a ton of bricks on any journalist planning to name the school attended by their son, Leo.

Now, however, the wife of the former prime minister has made it public on a corrections website owned by her friend, Sir David Tang.

Discussing a celebration to be attended by Leo, she says it is “a school leavers party for all the year 6 children who were leaving [...] primary school”.

It is a Roman Catholic state primary in London. Cherie does not say whether Leo will be following his older brothers to the London Oratory, which Nick Clegg’s sons may attend.